Classical philosophy and Darwinian biology are far more compatible than is usually assumed. In fact, looking at either from the standpoint of the other can enrich and deepen our appreciation of both. From a Darwinian point of view, the theories of Plato and Aristotle deserve to be taken very seriously. From the classical point of view, Darwinian biology is much less reductionist than its enemies suppose.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Aristotle & Abraham Lincoln

Here is another old post from my political blog. It concerns an exchange with Larry Arnhart over Aristotle and Abraham Lincoln.

Longtime
readers of this blog (there are such people!) will know that I have an
interest in Darwinian biology and its application to questions of
political science and political theory. I recently published an article
on Darwin and Lincoln: "Natural Right and The Origin of Species" in Perspectives on Political Science, vol. 39, January-March, 2010, pp. 12-19.

If
you are interested in this at all, go to the second link above and read
Larry's comments. They were very thought-provoking, and I have written a
reply. I am going to send it to him tomorrow, after I have had time to
give it a second reading. Meanwhile, here it is, submitted, as Rod
Serling liked to say on the Twilight Zone, for your approval.

Aristotle and Abraham: a Reply to Larry Arnhart

Larry Arnhart and I agree on so much, so often, that I am wary of
apparent disagreements. They may or may not be genuine. In his very kind
comments on my recent Lincoln/Darwin essay, he does take issue with me
on a couple of points. In my account, Arnhart thinks, Lincoln and
Aristotle come out too much alike. He thinks their natural right
doctrines need to be clearly distinguished, and in connection with this
he objects to something I said about libertarians.

With
regard to the subject I focused on, I do not believe there is any
significant difference between Lincoln's natural right argument against
slavery, and Aristotle's natural right argument about slavery. Consider
this:

The
next day in Janesville, Wisconsin, Mr. Lincoln returned to the legacy
of the Declaration of Independence in establishing the rights of blacks
as well as white: "Mr. Lincoln said that he had failed to find a man who
five years ago had expressed it his belief that the declaration of
independence did not embrace the colored man. But the public mind had
become debauched by the popular sovereignty dogma of Judge Douglas. The
first step down the hill is the denial of the Negro's rights as a human
being. The rest comes easy. Classing the colored race with brutes frees
from all embarrassment the idea that slavery is right if it only has the
endorsement the idea that slavery is right if it only has the
endorsement of the popular will. Douglas has said that in a conflict
between the white man and the Negro, he is for the white man, but in a
conflict between the white and the Negro, he is for the white man; but
in a conflict between the negro and the crocodile, he is for the negro.
Or the matter might be put in this shape. As the white man is to the
Negro, so is the Negro to the crocodile! (Applause and laughter). [Roy
P. Basler, editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume III, p. 484-486 (Speech at Janesville, Wisconsin. October 1, 1859).]

Compare that with Aristotle's Politics, Bk 1.5:

We
may firstly observe in living creatures both a despotical and a
constitutional rule; for the soul rules the body with a despotical rule,
whereas the intellect rules the appetites with a constitutional and
royal rule. And it is clear that the rule of the soul over the body, and
of the mind and the rational element over the passionate, is natural
and expedient; whereas the equality of the two or the rule of the
inferior is always hurtful. The same holds good of animals in relation
to men; for tame animals have a better nature than wild, and all tame
animals are better off when they are ruled by man; for then they are
preserved. Again, the male is by nature superior, and the female
inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of
necessity, extends to all mankind.

Where
then there is such a difference as that between soul and body, or
between men and animals (as in the case of those whose business is to
use their body, and who can do nothing better), the lower sort are by
nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they
should be under the rule of a master. For he who can be, and therefore
is, another's and he who participates in rational principle enough to
apprehend, but not to have, such a principle, is a slave by nature.

Lincoln's
argument and Aristotle's are in perfect agreement regarding the
standard of natural justice at issue here. If the Negro was to the White
Man what the alligator is to the Negro, then perhaps Aristotle's
standard of natural slavery would be met. He ain't.
I
certainly agree with Larry that Lincoln's modern natural right
argument,taken as a whole, is not identical to Aristotle's ancient view;
however, I think that difference is frequently exaggerated. I
acknowledged the difference between Aristotle's view that political
powers ought to be distributed according to virtue, and Lincoln's modern
view that they are to be distributed according to the consent of the
governed. But surely, like Aristotle, we would want both our rulers and
ourselves to be as virtuous as practically possible.

One
big difference between the classical view (Plato and Aristotle) and the
modern view (Lincoln and Jefferson) is that the former took as their
model of political virtue the heroic warrior while the latter took
instead the heroic farmer. That is a difference in tastes, but it surely
has a big impact on the respective political theories.

The
biggest difference, however, is that the moderns explicitly focused on
and answered a question that the ancients were a lot quieter about.
Plato's two longest works are about founding new cities, but in both
cases a pre-existing political authority is supposed. Platonic
republics, like Darwinian organism, seem always to be the offspring of
their own kind.

Where
does political authority come from in the first place? Perhaps the
ancients were bashful about this question because the answer was
unpalatable and tended to undermine all political authority. That was
certainly the conclusion reached by Machiavelli: all political authority
originates in criminal violence.

Lockean
natural right, by contrast, begins with the obvious fact that all
authority requires the willing support of some group of human beings
strong enough to sustain it. Founding legitimate government on the
consent of the governed begins by making that fact explicit, and by that
means points the way to establishing political authority without the
necessity of crime. Likewise, Lockean economic liberty removes the
necessity for slavery, something that had morally compromised all
ancient regimes just as it compromised the legitimacy of the early
American republic.

Aristotle
produced an account of slavery that, when you think it through,
condemns all slavery as it is actually practiced. But as he could see no
possibility of civilized life without slavery, he chose not to
explicitly state that conclusion. Lincoln, living in a modern regime,
could afford to make it explicit.

So,
while I acknowledge that Lincoln's modern natural right and Aristotle's
ancient natural right do differ in significant ways, I do not view this
difference as an opposition. I think that the case is rather analogous
to Aristotle's biology: he gets most of it right, astonishingly so,
considering what he has to work with. We moderns have had the good
fortune to solve a lot of political and scientific problems that
Aristotle could not solve.

Finally,
Larry defends libertarianism against Aristotle in the following way. Aristotle
thought that the regime was responsible for ensuring that people be as
good as possible. The regime included the society as a whole, but a
society as structured by the political authority. Libertarian natural
right, as Larry sees it, distinguishes between the state and society,
and thinks that social institutions alone ought to be responsible for
making people better. The role of government should be confined to the
ends listed by Adam Smith:

military defense, security against force and fraud, enforcing contracts, and certain public works and institutions.

Larry
thinks that this libertarian view is Lincoln's view. I reply yes, and
no. He brings into court the sophist Lycophron as a witness against me.

Contrast
this with what Aristotle says in the Politics (1280b1-12). He
attributes to the sophist Lycophron the teaching that the purpose of law
is to protect citizens against force and fraud and to secure commercial
exchange, and thus law should be "a contract, a guarantor among one
another of the just things, but not the sort of thing to make citizens
good and just." Aristotle rejects this, because he believes a polis is
not just for the sake of living but also for the sake of living well,
and for living well, a polis must shape the moral and intellectual
virtues that constitute the human good.

Aristotle's point was that the political community is not just
a business arrangement. It is a partnership in something more noble and
lofty than that. In a business arrangement, the partners need not like
each other or share any other interest other than the mutual benefit of
the contract. In Lycophron's view, the citizens are like two states
whose alliance reflects nothing more than mutual peril.

I am
sure that, for most purposes, Lincoln would largely agree with Adam
Smith's list. So would I. But did Lincoln really send hundreds of
thousands of men into battle for the sake of a mere business
arrangement? He certainly didn't talk that way. Was Lincoln's life's
work not as much concerned with preserving American virtues as with
anything else? Let me return to the first quote.

Mr.
Lincoln said that he had failed to find a man who five years ago had
expressed it his belief that the declaration of independence did not
embrace the colored man. But the public mind had become debauched by the
popular sovereignty dogma of Judge Douglas. The first step down the
hill is the denial of the Negro's rights as a human being.

Lincoln
saved the union not once but twice. Before he saved it from
secessionism, he saved it from the moral "debauchery" that Stephen
Douglas was abetting. That was a profoundly political act, and it was an
act by and for the regime, in an Aristotelian sense.

Let
me say that some of my best friends are libertarians. I am not sure that
we wouldn't be a lot better off if our laws were a lot more libertarian
in design. But if Lycophron is indeed a good spokesman for
libertarianism, it is surely incomplete. Just as surely, it cannot
explain Lincoln's great actions.

I
didn't know until Larry's thoughtful comments provoked me to think about
it, whether I believed that Lincolnian natural right and Aristotelian
natural right were the same. I think I am now prepared to say that they
are the same on the most important questions.